05.07 Key Points: Equate — Transcript

05.07 Key Points: Equate — Transcript (English)

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Transcript

Welcome to another Key Points lesson.

We’re going to talk about the transitional movements associated with the movements of the arms and the spine in the forms with the EQUATE focus.

And first, I’m going to briefly explain what it is.

So as the name EQUATE suggests, we want to equalize something.

And we’re talking about a situation where we have several movements which are opposing each other.

For example, let’s say if I press two arms into each other, one arm is pressing, another one is pressing, and together they equalize each other so that there is no movement visible, but the muscles are engaged.

So this use of opposing forces or movements which act against each other is one of the common strategies we use in Baseworks to create the Distributed Activation.

However, in this situation, where we’re just pressing arms into each other, it’s very easy to keep the symmetry.

It’s very unlikely that you’re going to lose control over this movement like this.

Right?

It’s very easy to equalize the forces when it’s just your right arm and the left arm, and the movement is completely symmetrical.

Also, for example, in this movement, although it’s easy to lose the symmetry like this, let’s say, if you’re able to keep the shoulders down, again, when you press the arms into each other, it’s very unlikely that one of the arms is going to win like this.

However, if it’s not our arms, but some other body parts pressing into each other, sometimes it’s not so easy to keep the symmetry, especially when you don’t have a mirror, you may not even be fully aware of what exactly your body looks like.

And the EQUATE focus is about finding the symmetry in these movement dynamics, where several movements are trying to compete with each other.

Okay, so let’s just take a look.

So here we will start again from sitting on the heels and as discussed in the previous segment, if this is very uncomfortable, you’re welcome to sit cross-legged, but whichever way, when we start here, our pelvis is upright, we bring the arms forward to offset the weight.

And then we lean back.

Look what the pelvis does.

The pelvis tilts back and the upper body tilts back.

Right?

So we tilt back as much as we can with the arms being forward.

Also, you can see that we are spreading the fingers, we’re drawing the shoulders down.

So our arms are very active.

It’s not just that they’re just hanging in front of us.

We’re actively pressing the arms out from the shoulder.

So here we’re going to move the arms and we want to pay extra attention to the quality of movement.

Slow, controlled, no snapping, no momentum.

So as we continue to spread the fingers and we move from the shoulder, one arm goes behind the head and with the same quality of movement, another one goes behind the head.

And at this point, we’re still kind of leaning back so our shoulders are a little bit forward in relation to the chest.

And if we can, in this position, we hold the elbows.

Okay?

If it’s not possible in this position to hold the elbows, we can just hold the arms kind of like this, or like this even.

And then…

So from the position where we’re still leaning back, and look, the head is really tilted kind of forward right now.

So the spine and the neck, they are not in one line here, they are rounded.

So we are working with the flexion, extension, flexion dynamic here.

Also, I’d like to point out here that if you imagine where the center of gravity is here, the center of gravity is still pretty far back, basically around your sit bones.

A common mistake here is that people really lean forward here, like what we do when we do that, for example, legs forward and we flex forward and then we extend the spine.

This is not like this at all.

In these forms, we want to be leaning back as much as we can, even though we’re rounding the spine.

So from here we try to extend the spine and see that we are coming into a position where the rib cage and the pelvis are stacked so is the head.

But the spine doesn’t arch very much.

Even I would say that what I’m doing here is borderline arching.

You could be pulling the rib cage back even more here.

This movement requires a lot of shoulder mobility so it’s possible that you you can do this.

But as you extend the spine, it’s actually not possible for you to have your spine extended while holding your arm like this, and your chest comes forward.

But you have to look for this stacked position, and therefore, to return your rib cage to the stacked position, you’re pulling the lower part of your rib cage back while you press the head back and the forearms forward.

So the three movements which are fighting here is the arms pressing forward, the head pressing back, and the ribcage being pulled back, trying to oppose being lifted by the movement of the head going back.

And all those three movements need to equalize each other at a point where we can find a completely straight pelvis, ribcage, and the head.

And if from here we came here, we try to pull the ribcage back and it just doesn’t work, Then we will have to let go of our arms a little bit, draw the shoulders down and then just hold whatever we can hold while we can still extend our spine.

And we move the ribcage.

It kind of feels like the lower back is almost like liquid.

The ribcage can move above the pelvis and we continue to press the head into the arms, arms into the head and the ribcage is pulled back.

And then when When we exit, we first lean back, so the head will go a little bit forward.

So we’re leaning back, we’re not leaning forward, yeah?

From here, we’re leaning back like this.

This is a very, very big difference.

And then when we release the arms, again, we don’t just snap out.

But the movement is that away, as much away from your shoulder as possible to create as much space in the joint as you can.

Very, very controlled movement.

You almost can imagine that all these movements are done in water.

So imagine that in water, you cannot, especially with your fingers open, you cannot make the movements really kind of sloppy and fast.

And then we do the other side and again, watch the quality of movement transitions.

So this is a segment about transitions.

So we focus on the quality of the transitions, but I also explain the EQUATE focus as we go.

So now I’m just going to speed it up.

We perform the other side of the form.

So we hold here the arms in the opposite way.

So here you can see that Satoko’s shoulders are much more open than mine.

So you cannot see it as much as if you watch me here.

But you can really see that my rib cage is just borderline lifted.

And I really have to pull it back to work on my shoulder mobility here.

We continue to draw the shoulders down to the micro movements.

So we did the second side.

So going to be a transition between two forms.

Again, we lean back.

The head is slightly forward, but from here, we didn’t go like this.

We leaned back and rounded the spine.

So your center of gravity is somewhere above your heels or toes.

So we release the arms with as much control as we can, spreading the fingers, the arms are active.

And then we bring the arms a little bit forward so that we can lean a little bit back.

We spend some time here.

And then we will do another form.

And so what we do here is that the right hand first begins to turn in and then we twist from the chest no momentum.

So we twist back as much as we can.

And then we try to bring the -in this case right- hand in between the shoulder blades or maybe on your lower back.

And then we return to center while we’re still leaning back.

It’s very important that we’re still leaning back at this point.

Because with the limitation in the shoulder mobility, when you return from the twisting position, the tendency is that many people will come more upright because it leaves more space for the right arm to be behind the back.

But we don’t want to do that.

If you feel like there’s too much compression in the shoulder, you just bring the arm a little bit lower on your lower back.

There should be absolutely no compression in this right shoulder.

And then the left arm moves slowly several times in the shoulder, circumlinear motion.

So we move it several times.

Again, no momentum, no snapping, no throwing anything.

And then if it is possible, we will… watch what Satako is doing.

We will bind the hands.

Or if it’s not possible to reach if your hands are away from each other, you will do what I’m doing here.

And you will just hold, like you will make two fists, and we extend the spine.

And again, we’re trying to find a position where the pelvis and the ribcage are stacked.

And the head is pressing into the top arm, and the ribcage, the lower part of the ribcage, the rib cage is going to pull back so that we can have this completely straight spine.

And then when we come out, first we lean back.

Then if you are holding your hands, you will first release the hands.

And then first the left arm will go high up.

And then we will first twist to the right.

So we don’t just let the arm go out.

We first twist to the right so that we have more space for the arm to move.

Then the arm reaches out back like this.

So see the left arm wants to go in this direction, the right arm wants to go in this direction.

We’re really pulling the arms away from each other.

And watch the right hand, it is still… the shoulder is still twisted in.

And then as we turn the arm out, we first turn it out.

So in this position, the arm was in, we turn the right shoulder out and from this point you can imagine you are holding something like a log.

So if I were to look towards you, the right shoulder is a little bit forward and the back shoulder is a little bit back.

But we want to return to a position where the arms are symmetrical.

So if we don’t think about the twist, the arms need to return to more or less this position, although they will go a little bit forward.

So the transitional movement here is that as you return from the twist, the arms return to the symmetrical position and at the same time the arms want to go away from your shoulder.

That’s the quality of the movement we want to achieve here.

And so you once again lean back, arms forward and then we perform the other movement and I’m just going to show it one more time.

So back, really turn the arm in, bring the palm behind your back between the shoulder blades or on your lower back while you’re still twisting back.

Then you will return to face forward but you’re still leaning back.

And then you will move, bend the right elbow, move the right shoulder while you’re still leaning back.

And then you will bring the right arm behind the head.

And if you can reach, you will hold the hands together or you you just form two fists.

And then you will extend the spine.

And here, EQUATE focus, the right arm is pressing in the head, the head is pressing back, the rib cage is pulling back so that we can have the straight spine.

And we draw the shoulders down, we move the rib cage, we don’t forget of course, about the feet.

So we’re trying to extend the top of the feet, trying to extend the knees a little bit.

And to come out, the transitional movement, we lean back.

If we were holding the hands, we release them.

And then first right arm extends out.

Then we twist, then the left arm extends out.

You can see that the palms are turned into different directions, which means that the shoulders are performing different movements here.

And then we turn the arm out.

So it was in, we turn it out.

And imagine you’re holding something gigantic like a log in your hands, and you undo the twist and look, you’re still leaning back.

So you’re not coming upright, you’re still leaning back.

So whenever we perform these movements, these transitions between these forms, remember that you’re constantly leaning back unless you’re coming to this extended spine position.

So it’s flexion, extension, flexion, and all the transitional movements are done at the stage of flexion.

And if we imagine these are legs, this is the spine, the flexion doesn’t look like this.

The flexion looks like this.

This is very, very important.

And in this particular practice lesson in this sequence, just because we spend so much time sitting on our ankles, we will do these movements to release tension.

And then we will just come to the Reclining Transition in the end, which will allow us also to extend the ankles, spread the toes, push the balls of the feet.

So through Suspension, we come to Reclining Transition, making sure that again, as we’re sitting on the feet, they might have been a little bit tired.

So we activate the feet, and then we just cross the legs and we stop.

This is what we’re going to do in the next practice lesson.

Right?

So that’s it.

So here, really watch the quality of movement as you perform all these arm transitions.

And because these forms have the EQUATE focus, your goal is to use opposing movements all together to create Distributed Activation while looking for this one straight line in relation to the grid lines and symmetry.

Give it a try in the next practice lesson.

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• Transcribed by: Auto-import
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• Date: 2026-02-03